A Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill has touched off a heated bipartisan battle, with senior senators fighting it out over one of the most valuable commodities any lawmaker can bring home — airplane flights.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has pushed so hard to bring flights to the West that his staff showed up for a meeting of senior aides with an unusual partner — a US Airways lobbyist. Democrats grumbled, but it looks like US Airways will score the most flights in the West and very likely will add at least one flight to its hub in Phoenix, a US Airways representative said.

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POLITICO 44

Other Western senators, including Republican Sens. John Ensign of Nevada and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, forced the issue of allowing more long-distance flights out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. An amendment to add flights, backed by several of the senators, led to negotiations over the issue.

Critics say it’s pork-barrel politics of a different sort: parochialism trumping the needs of the U.S. airline system.

But congressional horse trading is fierce because lawmakers badly want the long-distance flights between National and Western cities — as well as the business travel and tourism dollars they bring. Not to mention making it easier for them to catch flights home.

Some of the losers so far, surprisingly, are Democrats — including Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who has fought to prevent more of the cross-country flights from originating at National, citing noise concerns. But under the current plan, 21 long-distance round-trip flights would be added, mainly by allowing airlines to swap regional short-hop flights for long-distance trips.

That’s where US Airways comes in. Since it flies the most flights out of National Airport, it stands to convert the most regional routes to more profitable long-distance flights.

So even though Democratic Sen. John Rockefeller runs the committee taking up the FAA reauthorization bill, Kyl has been able to gain the upper hand because Rockefeller needs Republican votes to pass the bill.

Aviation experts say this is no way to run the nation’s airline system — that the “political arms race” of doling out flights by political influence makes it harder for airlines to run their operations efficiently.

“Trying to micromanage routes for political advantage is ultimately a zero-sum game anyway,” said aviation industry consultant Craig Jenks. “We in the airline industry wish that the good senators and congressmen would put the same energy into things that would really benefit the industry as a whole and not be so parochial in their interests.”

In addition to the noise additional flights would bring, Warner is worried that more flights from National would hurt United Airlines, which maintains a large hub at Washington Dulles International Airport, by siphoning long-haul business from Dulles.

This summer, Warner approached Kyl and asked if he knew that National and Dulles had concerns with the proposal. Warner set up a meeting with his staff, Kyl’s staff and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages the two airports.

That’s when Kyl’s staff brought the US Airways lobbyist to the meeting.

“US Airways was brought in to advocate on behalf of Kyl’s position,” said a senior Democratic Senate aide. “They thought in order to get their position across and to advocate for their position effectively, they needed to have US Air in the room.”

But Kyl had understood that other Western senators’ staffs would be invited to the meeting and would also bring their home-state airlines to hear the airport authority’s argument, said a Senate Republican aide familiar with the meeting.

The aide said opponents of the deal are trying “to paint a picture of wrongdoing” where there is none.

Readers' Comments (9)

And all this time I thought that airlines were setting up flight schedules to maximize profit and maximize service to the public. Silly me.

Things are so screwed up in the airline industry right now I should have known that the incompetent policitians must have had their hands in it somewhere. Just one more reason why we need to fight for smaller government.

Is there anyone out there anywhere who can point out for me the specific provision in the constitution that allows the government this level of control over our lives?

DCA is a slotted airport (and slotted to capacity) which means any long distance flight added requires a shorter flight be cut and moved to another airport (Dulles or Baltimore) inconveniencing the travelling public. To add seven day a week service to Phoenix so a senator can fly out on Thursday night is idiotic.

This is exactly the type of petty corruption that makes us all crazy. I don't care who you are or what your political beliefs are, you must be disgusted with Senators spending their extremely valuable time and energy shilling for their financial sponsors, public interest be damned.

I don't care who you are or what your political beliefs are, you must be disgusted with Senators spending their extremely valuable time and energy shilling for their financial sponsors, public interest be damned.

You mean like when Harry Reid tries to get online gambling re-legalized, but only for the casinos who coughed up the money and even bussed their employees to the polls to vote for him . . ?

Obviously, the whole ridiculous arrangments is a poster-child for Congressional micro-managing and political power and influence.

That's why U.S. Senators are getting involved in such a detailed fashion over what should be a simple solution: drop the whole non-stop limit insanity, and allow airlines with slots at National to fly whereever they want to that makes the most commercial sense to them. As the airport is slot-limited, any overflow will go to Dulles or up the parkway to BWI.

And you wonder why Congress is such an easy target to riducule..........